The Koromandel kust — the Coromandel Coast of south-eastern India — was the principal source of the cotton textiles (calicoes and pintados) that the Dutch and English East India companies used as their chief exchange commodity in the pepper and spice trade of the Malay-Indonesian archipelago, the destination of the annual Portuguese carrack captured by the Anglo-Dutch squadron off Atjeh on 3 October 1602, and the source of the cottons that the Dutch used to purchase the Atjeh pepper in the early VOC period. The Koromandel kust is the principal named Indian coast in Van der Woude’s chapter “Atjeh. Djohor. Malaka.” in his Van der Woude (1948).
The textile trade and the Atjeh pepper
The pepper trade of the Atjeh coast was conducted principally in exchange for Indian cotton textiles — the calicoes and pintados of the Koromandel kust. The Portuguese carrack captured by the Anglo-Dutch squadron off Atjeh on 3 October 1602 — the first major Anglo-Dutch joint naval prize in the East Indies — was the annual Portuguese carrack from the Koromandel coast bound for Malaka, carrying “nine hundred and fiftie packes of calicoes and pintados, besides many packets of merchandize”. The capture shows the central commercial role of the Koromandel textiles in the Malay-Indonesian trade: the Portuguese carrack was the chief annual conduit of Koromandel cottons into the Malay-Indonesian pepper and spice trade, and its capture by the Anglo-Dutch squadron both deprived the Portuguese of the cottons and provided the Anglo-Dutch with the exchange commodity they needed for the Atjeh pepper.
The Dutch factories on the Koromandel kust
The Dutch established factories on the Koromandel kust in the early VOC period: at Mazulipatnam and Petapoeli in 1605-1606 and at Tegenapatnam in 1607. The establishment of the factories was the principal Dutch commercial initiative on the Indian coast in the early VOC period, and the framework within which the Dutch textile trade with the Malay-Indonesian archipelago would develop over the next century and a half. The Koromandel cottons — purchased at the Dutch factories with European specie and exchanged in the archipelago for pepper and spices — were the principal commercial instrument of the VOC’s pepper and spice monopoly.
Significance
The Koromandel kust is, in Van der Woude’s narrative, the principal source of the cotton textiles that the Dutch and English East India companies used as their chief exchange commodity in the pepper and spice trade of the Malay-Indonesian archipelago, and the destination of the annual Portuguese carrack captured off Atjeh on 3 October 1602. The Koromandel cottons — purchased at the Dutch factories on the Indian coast with European specie and exchanged in the archipelago for pepper and spices — were the principal commercial instrument of the VOC’s pepper and spice monopoly, and the textile trade with the Koromandel kust was the principal Dutch commercial initiative on the Indian coast in the early VOC period. The Koromandel kust’s role in the early Dutch-Atjeh relationship — as the source of the exchange commodity for the Atjeh pepper — frames the early-modern commercial geography of the Indian Ocean trade in which Atjeh pepper was a principal node.
Sources
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
See Also
- Acheh
- Capture of the Portuguese carrack off Atjeh (October 1602)
- James Lancaster
- Joris Spilbergh
- Sultan of Atjeh (1589-1604)
- Malaka
- Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie
- 1602
- Tuan Meurasab
- Nagore
- India (Southern India)
- British India
- Deccan
- Mecca
- Bengal
Source
Coen, Koopman van Heeren Zeventien. Geschiedenis van den Hollandshen Handel in Indië (1598-1614), by Johan van der Woude (Amsterdam: C.V. Uitgeverij v/h C. De Boer Jr., 1948), Hoofdstuk V “Voorgangers, Hollanders en mededingers tot 1614. Atjeh. Djohor. Malaka.” (pp. 117-118), and Hoofdstuk VI (pp. 141-178).